Page 17 - Studio International - December 1974

of colour and band within the paintings. In the his 1967 horizontal bands, Gene Davis's typical following artists are, on the evidence of their
course of a detailed review of a recent exhibition vertical bands, as well as Louis's 1961-2 stripes. contribution to this exhibition, paying righteous
by Jack Bush at Emmerich's in Zurich, John No amount of chatter about the artist's 'touch' homage: Ayres, Beattie, Bennett, Elderfield,
McLean attempts to sustain a note of deep in laying-in bands which set up rhythms of Fielding, Golding, Halliday, Hoyland, Hubbard,
respect for Bush's 'achievement' while, colour 'breathing' then contained etc., can Irvin, James, Patrick Jones, Trevor Jones,
remarkably, describing each painting in turn as compensate for the obvious want of inspiration Lancaster, McLean, Miller, Walker.
either admittedly a failure or a bore (the latter at a point before his staining on of acrylic. This A by now rather hackneyed formalist gambit
by, presumably, unintended implication). And painting, like so many in the exhibition, fails is to 'challenge taste'. Usually, this is done in
W. Neil Marshall, in his 'Style, Toronto and before the physical work at the canvas begins: one of two ways: by courting the pretty, as in
Younger Art', seems pleased with the obvious the creative decision-making took place long ago, Olitski's vapid cosmetics, or risking the ugly, as
provincialism of the situation of younger it was abdicated to the formalist framework and in Poons's elephant-skin surfaces. Both
formalists in Toronto. What he is responding now concern with its unfolding and maintenance tendencies are well represented at the Hayward
to, although he nowhere states this explicitly, alone remains. The actual execution of the work — indeed, with the exaggeration characteristic
is the fact that the joining of a dominant can only be mechanical, relieved by the odd of provincialism, they are magnified. Thus the
metropolitan style and ideology can be more pleasurable accident perhaps, but essentially a contributions of, for example, Fielding, James
overt and unreserved when done so from formality. and McLean on the one hand, and Ayres,
outside of the specific social milieu in which This last is not merely a remark about the Halliday, Hubbard, Patrick Jones and Walker on
it grew. nature of imitativeness per se. Rather, it is a the other. Some precariously manage both
So we have returned to the provincialist characterization of a typically formalist totality 'challenges' at once, e.g. Hoyland. The coyness
problematic — in particular, to the exaggerative, of subservience to the given framework. It holds of the approach, and its evident failure, is that
complicative, distortive effects of geographic even more emphatically for those, unlike the such 'tastelessness' immediately becomes
distance and cultural differentiation (as small, painters of the previous paragraph, who have undramatically tasteful, because the framework
in the last case, as these might seem to those kept themselves up to date with the 'advances' of response is predisposed to accommodate it.
who are not Torontonians). Every aspect of the of their mentors — specifically, the 'all-over Albert Irvin's Across is clearly indicative:
July/August issue of Studio is glaringly painterliness' of Olitski and Poons, begun Louis staining, straight from the 1959 'Florals',
illustrative of these effects, from its very 1969-70. The subsequent changes within this across the top and behind; 1974 Dan Christense
conception to the specific claims made within it. phase of the work of these two painters have out of Olitski squeegeed-about liquitex across
Formalism, as an art ideology, tends to been carefully followed by others in the New the bottom. So, too, Basil Beattie's Red: Louis
export easily. It does so, it-seems to me, above York formalist academy: Bannard, Dzubas, 'Veils' at the top; sideways Hoyland out of
all because of the promise it offers to artists and Holland, Christensen, etc. There is a blurring Hofmann across the bottom; with a loping
critics who are trapped in the provincialist bind: into that most feeble of recent art styles, 'dripped' line from Pollock's 1951 'friezes'
join the mainstream of art history by working 'Lyrical Abstraction', as the practitioners of the struggling to bind the two halves together. Only
within a broad but closed set of formal latter assimilate themselves to the former, e.g., the colours are changed, and they are awful.
conventions, including a crude set of rules Diao, Seery, Wofford, etc. Recent painting in Both paintings are resoundingly empty, but
which hint at how to 'innovate' within those New York has been imploding in this way, the the same approach appears in more
conventions. [16] This easy way out is the one only other options being New Realism in one accomplished work. Hoyland, for example,
taken by a large number of the abstract painters form or another, and the 'minimal' painting of thinks about painting, makes his art, in
in the 'British Painting 74' show. Ryman and Marden. essentially the same way. His greater
Remnants of 1960s flat-colour abstraction What distinguishes the work of Ryman and sophistication fails to disguise a painting
persist. One expected to see it in Moon, Huxley, Marden is their evident sense of the fragility of compromise, a synthesis of sources which is no
Vaux, Turnbull and Joseph — the slight surprise the pursuit of painting itself. Nothing of this more than that.
is its active elaboration by others, including self-consciousness is to be found at the Hayward. What kind of life must it be, to swagger
younger painters: Carter, Marshall, Quick, Not only do the British 'formalists' (like their around a studio wrestling with decisions of the
Rosenbloom, Scully, Wragg. John Copnall's New York counterparts) fail to acknowledge order of how much acrylic can I lather on
Untitled July 1974 seems a virtual parody: the the cliff-hanging condition of Painting, they without slackening the frame-within-frame
basic format is Newman 1950-1, but the central commit themselves to subservience to the most format? Is not the ethical implication of
panel is treated as a Rothko on its side, attenuated, self-involved and self-satisfied formalism, in New York, London and elsewhere,
interlaced at both ends with stripes which tendency in New York painting. In one way or the one we adduced earlier: celebrate your
quote exactly Noland's early 1960s circles, then another, and to a debilitating degree, the conformist sell-out?

[1] 'The Provincialism Problem', Artforum. Other Criteria, Oxford Uni. Press, 1972. the Group', Studio International, vol. 175, May and
[2] Alan Bowness, 'The American Invasion and [7] The Nation, April 7, 1945; cited Francis V. June 1968, 254-7 and 314-16.
the British Response', Studio International, vol. 173, O'Connor, Jackson Pollock 1912-1956, Museum of [14] N.R. Hanson, Patterns of Discovery, Cambridge
June 1967, 285-93. Modern Art, New York, 1967, 37. Uni. Press, 1958. Others include Toulmin, Feyerabend
and Kuhn. For a detailed criticism, see Carl R. Kordig,
[3] Compare Ian Burn, Mel Ramsden and Terry [8] The Nation, April 13, 1946; cited O'Connor, 39.
Smith, 'Draft for an Anti-Textbook', Art-Language, [9] cf. Donald Brook, 'Art Criticism: Private The Justification of Scientific Change, Humanities
Press, New York 1971.
vol. 3, no. 1, Oct. 1974. Experiences and Public Objects', Leonardo, vol. VI,
[15] Cf. 'Draft for an Anti-Textbook', op. cit.
no. 2, Spring 1973, 103-8. On Bloomsbury
[4] 'Avant-Garde Attitudes', Studio International,
aestheticism, see Charles Harrison. [16] See my 'The Provincialism Problem', op. cit.,
vol. 179, April 1970, 142-5. Commentary: Donald
Brook, 'Art Criticism: Authority and Argument', [10] Nos. 93-4, Oct. 1947, 20-30. 59. The spread of the formalist academy outside New
York during the past fifteen years has been truly
ibid., vol. 180, Sept. 1970, 66-9; and my 'The [11] The more overt reference occurs earlier in
"Style of the 'Sixties" ', Quadrant, Sydney, no. 58, Greenberg's essay, on page 24: 'The School of Paris remarkable. Among critics, a partial list would begin:
March—April 1969, 47-53. On the 'painterliness' rested on a sufficient acceptance of the world as it E.A. Carmean Jr. (Museum of Fine Arts, Houston,
point, see John Elderfield, 'Painterliness Redefined: must be, and delighted in the world's very Texas), Ken Carpenter, (York Uni., Toronto), Jane
Jules Olitski and Recent Abstract Art', Art disenchantment, seeing it as evidence of man's triumph Harrison Cone (Baltimore), John Elderfield (Leeds
International, vol. 16, Dec. 1972, 22-6 and vol. 17, over it'. Uni.), Michael Fried (Harvard Uni.), Andrew Hudson
April 1973, 36-41 + 101. (Corcoran Gallery, Washington), Rosalind Krauss
[12] Partisan Review, vol. XXII, Spring 1955; (Princeton Uni.), Patrick McCaughey (Melbourne),
[5] Morris Louis, Hayward Gallery, London June— revised in Art and Culture, Beacon Press, Boston 1961, John McLean (University College, Slade School of Art,
Sept. 1974, II + 8. 208-229. London), Kenworth Moffett (Boston Museum of Fine
[6] 'Reflections on the State of Criticism', Artforum, [13] Barbara Rose, 'Art and Politics', Artforum, Arts, Wellesley College). Listing the artists would take
vol. X, no. 7, March 1972, esp. 43ff; reprinted in Feb. 1968, 31-2; and Barbara Reise, 'Greenberg and at least the space of this article.
223